Briefly discuss the impact of globalisation on culture.

The Impact of Globalisation on Culture:

(i) There are several ways that globalisation affect culture Over the ages our country (India) has had on open approach to cultural influences and have been enriched because of this.

(ii) The last decade (1990 - 2000) has seen major cultural changes leading to fears that on local cultures would be overtaken.

(iii) Some of the scholars declares that India's cultural traditional has been wary of the Kupamanduka (कूपमण्डुक), the frog that lives its whole life within a well, knows nothing else, and is suspicious of everything outside it. It talks to no one, and argues with no one on anything. It merely harbours the deepest suspicion of the outside world. Fortunately for us we retain our ‘traditional’ open-minded attitude to this day.

(iv) From time to time we listen about heated debates (or discussing) in our society (or on mass medias) not just about political and economic issues but also about changes in clothes, styles, music, dance, films, languages, body-languages.

(v) The 19th century socio-religious reformers and early nationalists (moderates) also debated on culture and tradition The issues today are in some ways the same ways different. What is perhaps different is the scale and intensity of change.

(vi) A central connection is that all cultures will become similar, that is homogeneous. Others argue that there is an increasing tendency towards globalisation of culture. Globalisation refers to the mixing of the global with the local. It is not entirely delinked from the commercial interests of globalisation.

(vii) It is a strategy often adopted by foreign firms while dealing with local traditions in order to enhance their marketability. In India, we find that all the foreign television channels like Star, MTV, Channel V and Cartoon Network use Indian languages. Even McDnald sells only vegetarian and chicken products in India and not its beef products, which are popular abroad. McDonald's goes vegetarian during the Navaratri festival.

(viii) In the field of music, one can see the growth of popularity of ‘Bhangra pop’, Indi pop, fusion music and even remixes.

(ix) The strength of Indian culture has been its open minded approach. We also saw how through the modern period our reformers and nationalists actively debated tradition and culture. Culture cannot be seen as an unchanging fixed entity that can either collapse or remain the same when faced with social change. What is more likely even today is that globalisation will lead to the creation of not just new local traditions but global ones too.

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M. Imp.